Electrohydraulic pressure control devices where the cover or at least part of the cover is designed as an electronic control unit are known. In this respect, by way of example, reference is made to the embodiments of the international publication WO 89/10286 in accordance with which, beyond the well-known block construction of the valve accommodating body, the cover is subdivided by means of a plate-shaped carrier element in order to accommodate the electronic control unit. The cover of this reference also establishes the electric connection between the electronic control unit and the contact elements projecting from the solenoid valves. The coils of the solenoid valves and the cover are placed after one another onto the valve domes of the valve accommodating body, with plug contacts interlocking in order to establish the electric connection between the contact elements and the electronic control unit integrated in the cover.
The pressure control device of the above reference cannot be considered particularly advantageous in terms of manufacture, operation tests and assembly for the following reasons: (1) manufacture to extremely close tolerances is required for mounting and connecting the coils to the electronic part of the cover; (2) the operation tests of the electronic part, with the hydraulic part disconnected, are rendered more difficult because of the absence of coils; and (3) the stiffness of the components to be aligned with one another complicates assembly because of the dependence on the manufacturing precision requirements mentioned above. Moreover, different operating temperatures and, thus, thermal expansions between the individual components can produce undesired mechanical tensions.
It is also known to form an assembly unit by combining such a valve block, to be used for a controlled brake system, with the associated electronic circuitry or rather with the electronic control unit. To this end, the actual valve block, which is mainly composed of the valve accommodating body, the valves and the valve coils, is detachably connected with the electronic control unit by means of a contact-pin- and-sleeve connection, as disclosed in German Published Patent Application No. 01 017 A1.
It is an object of this invention to improve pressure control devices in order to provide both a compact and operationally optimized pressure control device which makes manufacture, testing and assembly as easy as possible and which minimizes the tension between components with different thermal expansions and to disclose a method for manufacturing such a pressure control device.